They must have been shipping eggnog, mistletoe, tinsel and other festive goodies to the Blizzard store in bulk, as they're kicking off seasonal events in multiple games today. Team FPS Overwatch and crossover MOBA Heroes Of The Storm are getting especially daft for the season, while Bungie are playing it a little more straight in shoot n' looter Destiny 2. Not that they haven't found…

After smooshing decades of Blizzard history into mega-crossover MOBA Heroes Of The Storm, the studio have announced that a brand-new, original, never-been-seen character is joining the fight. Orphea, whose title I believe is "Heir of Raven Court and daughter of the Raven Lord", hasn't been in any Blizzard game before, which is... weird? Perhaps they wanted to create a specific type of character and, with…

"All microchips are," prog rock band Kansas famously almost sang, "is dust in the wind." Friend, we are gathered today to celebrate the retirement of another generation of hardware. Blizzard have removed support for 32-bit and DirectX 9 from Heroes Of The Storm, saying farewell to hardware that once powered PCs with such ha-ha-hilarious joke names as "Chipster", "Siri", "Crunch ALL The Frames", and "Not…

Blizzard are to disable paid loot boxes in their games Overwatch and Heroes Of The Storm for players in Belgium, following the country's recent ruling that their random grab bags of hats constitute gambling. Players in Belgium will no longer be able to buy loot boxes in either game with money or 'Gems', though they will still be able to earn boxes of cosmetic doodads…

James “Bakery” Baker no longer plays Heroes of the Storm competitively. Before retiring through injury, the 21-year old Brit was the captain and support player for Team Dignitas, widely regarded as one of the best teams in Europe – and even the world. From 2015 to 2017 he played a major role in many of the squad’s biggest tournament successes, collected more than a hundred…

I'm sorry. I just can't take a wild-eyed inquisitor named 'Sally' seriously, even if she is Heroes Of The Storm's latest playable character. Maybe it's because I grew up with a daft, soft Labrador by that name. Maybe it's because it's just not that intimidating sounding. I mean, the big fancy inquisitor's hat is all well and good, as are the World Of Warcraft-standard enormous…

Back in 2016, Blizzard started hiring for a new first person game, by grabbing a couple of artists and moving Dustin Browder (the director of StarCraft 2) from his role on Heroes of the Storm to work as the director for the unannounced project. A new job post on Blizzard's career site shines more light on what is probably not Overwatch 2. The listing says…

This year's BlizzCon will run November 2-3, Blizzard have confirmed, and the first round of tickets will go on sale on May 9th. BlizzCon is their annual fan convention in California, with panels, tournaments, and events for all their big games. It always brings some big announcements too, setting up the year of Blizzard to come. For people who can't get there, Blizzard will also…

If this had been announced just a few days earlier, I'd have assumed it was an April Fools gag, but Blizzard are (mostly) deadly serious here: Diablo's crumbly old sage Deckard Cain is the latest addition to their fast and accessible MOBA Heroes of The Storm, and he's quite unlike any other character in the game, or many other MOBAs for that matter.

It has been said that if you ever want to learn to swear in every language known to man (especially Russian), you merely have to play a few rounds of Dota 2 without disabling voice chat. Knowing this, Blizzard's decision to include this as the latest standard feature of their softer, milder take on the MOBA genre comes as a bit of a surprise. As…

The next Overwatch map will launch on January 23rd, Blizzard World have confirmed. It's taking the gang to the magical kingdom of Blizzard World, a theme park based on Blizzard's other games, from the StarCraft rollercoaster 'Journey to Aiur' to the 'Snaxxramas' restaurant. Us, nah we're not having fun, we're going there to shove a payload around. After a stretch on the test servers, Blizzard…

As if the hordes of Hanzo players swanning around Overwatch ignoring objectives like they're god's gift to murder were insufficient, the archer is coming to Heroes of the Storm too. Blizzard announced last night during BlizzCon that they're adding Hanzo to their free-to-play crossover MOBA along with World of Warcraft's dragonqueen Alexstrasza. He plings arrows, she heals people and blasts fire. A big ol' update…

A cartoon tells me that "Kel'thuzad, Archlich of Naxxramas" has found his way into Heroes of the Storm [official site]. The cartoon also revealed to me that I would have been far more into a He-Man/She-Ra style cartoon featuring these characters than I am into Heroes of the Storm.

Mech-piloting, Dorito-munching pro gamer D.Va has joined the cast of Blizzard's free-to-play crossover MOBA Heroes of the Storm [official site], arriving just a few weeks after Genji. If you know her from Overwatch, you largely know how she works in HotS, because abilities translate fairly directly between the two class-based games. She stomps around in a mech which has shields and boosters and which she…

Overwatch cyberninja Genji has arrived in Blizzard's Heroes of the Storm [official site] and the mech-piloting digital sports superstar D.Va is soon to follow. To give them somewhere familiar to scrap, the free-to-play crossover MOBA's update 2.0 has added a map based on Overwatch's Hanamura level. HotS 2.0 also reworks the player progression and loot system, and brings an event with crossover rewards in both…

A company who make and sell cheats for Blizzard games including Overwatch, Hearthstone, and World of Warcraft must pay Blizzard over $8.5 million, a US court has ruled. This is the latest development in Blizzard's battle with cheaty botters Bossland, which has so far spanned five years, the courts of several countries, and even more cases. This latest ruling says that, along with paying up,…

World of Warcraft, StarCraft 2, Diablo 3, Hearthstone, and Heroes of the Storm are all to stop working on Windows XP and Windows Vista as Blizzard start phasing out support for ye olde operatinge systemes later this year. Other, older games will still work fine, but folks will need to upgrade to keep playing those newer ones. Windows XP is now fifteen years old and…

It's time for my "they added a hero I know from another game so I'll check back in on Heroes of the Storm [official site]" check-in as Lúcio from that "Overwatch" game I've heard so much about hits the public test realm. I'm feigning Overwatch ignorance for vaguely comedic effect but actually Lúcio is one of the few characters in that game I love playing…

It is time for my semi-regular check in with Heroes of the Storm [official site]. That game has reached the point where I'll boot it up when a character I've heard of or who sounds mechanically interesting turns up, but nothing keeps me actually playing beyond that. Valeera Sanguinar is the hero who has brought me back this time. She's an assassin and... well, Heroes…

Hey, you! You there in the Blizzard-branded t-shirt, with the Blizzard flat cap, the Blizzard denim vest, the Blizzard cashmere scarf, the Blizard pocketwatch, and the Blizzard gardening gloves: fancy seeing your favourite Blizzardmen in a new way? Blizzard are making all characters in their crossover MOBA Heroes of the Storm [official site] free to play with this weekend. What would Zarya out Overwatch say…